My father, the hero
by Arabian Princess
Summary: Set eighteen months after Endless Waltz. Mariemaia seeks out Relena on Father's Day. Companion to My father, the soldier and My father, the pacifist. Written for Mariemaia Month at gwozzies on LJ.


Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing. This fan fiction has no commercial value, and I am not making any kind of profit or income off of this story or the use of characters owned by Sunrise and Bandai.

My father, the hero

Relena sighed and fell into her chair. Another day at the office. She absent-mindedly looked out the window and wondered if people hated diplomats and their petty problems as much as she. They probably did not. The public never got to hear the little, insignificant, insane problems and arguments behind closed doors. No, that was reserved for special people like herself, people the politicians erroneously thought would never think about setting their desks on fire.

She stared at the stack of papers in front of her, silently cursing their sources. No matter how many aides she acquired, the papers seemed to grow. By the tenth one she had realized that it was much like the mythical beast hydra: for each time she added a new aide, the paperwork would grow ten times.

She wondered if there was a way to miss the rest of the day's meetings without causing a big to-do. Probably not. Life could be cruel in its humor sometimes. She tried to think of ways to free up her afternoon. If she could do that, perhaps she could spend it like any other teenager her age. She could call her friends—well, she could call Dorothy—and head to the mall. Dorothy would be able to disguise them enough to where people did not recognize them immediately.

As she considered whether it was ethical to tell certain wives about their husbands' activities (thus freeing up the rest of everyone's day), a small red head popped in the office.

"Mariemaia?" she asked. She was a little surprised. She had only seen the girl briefly at a couple functions since the "incident."

"Yes," the girl responded in a barely audible whisper. For some strange reason, she was suddenly shy.

Relena bade her to come in and to take a seat, inquiring as to why the girl had come.

"It's…well it's today," she explained.

"Oh? And what is today?" Mariemaia looked at her completely baffled. It seemed apparent she thought Relena should know exactly what day it was.

"It's Father's Day," the child reminded slowly. Relena remembered with a jolt. She had even given a speech with Quatre earlier that morning on father, specifically their own. Seven in the morning felt like ages ago.

"And…you miss yours?" she ventured.

Mariemaia shrugged. "I've always had Uncle Trowa…or Dekim. They always told me about him."

"I know it's hard, but you can still remember them on this day," Relena offered. "I still do things for my father each Father's Day."

"You mean when you remember," Mariemaia said.

Relena blushed slightly. "I would have remembered as soon as I quit working," she defended. Mariemaia gave her a skeptical look, so she added, "Really."

"What do you do for your father?"

"I get up an hour earlier—the time he always woke up at. I have his favorite breakfast and dinner. I do a few of his favorite activities with my mother, like later today I'm taking her out dancing, to their favorite play, and gardening."

The girl nodded. "I don't think I could do anything that Dekim or Uncle Trowa liked, though. I don't have anyone to do it with." Seeing Relena's train of thought, she quickly added, "Lady doesn't really like to talk of them. She'd rather I think of my father, especially on today."

Relena bit her lip, not sure if she should speak her opinion on that matter.

Mariemaia saved her the trouble by continuing. "I do want to learn about my father. Lady tells me a lot and has a great deal to show me, but she's also very busy. Zechs and Miss Noin tell me a lot, too; however, I only get to hear from them when they call in to give reports. I actually learn most from Miss Dorothy. She has a lot of free time and many more possessions to sort through. I help her go through everything, and she tells me the stories behind and around things and answers my questions."

"It's good to learn from family."

"From family?"

"Well, Dorothy is your cousin, right?"

Mariemaia nodded. "But it's still not enough to make me think of him on today."

The Vice Foreign Minister nodded. "I can understand that."

"They still don't realize I don't know my father," she sighed. She looked up at Relena, straight in the eye. "How can I be expected to continue my father's legacy when I never knew him?"

Relena blinked, a bit taken back by the question. "Mariemaia, why have you come to see me?"

"We're the same," she answered simply.

Relena fought hard to stop from laughing. She and Mariemaia the same? "How-how do you see that?" She noted proudly she asked with a smooth voice.

"You never knew your father—your real father, King Peacecraft, but you're still expected to follow in his ways. I never knew my father, but I am still expected to follow in his footsteps—though Lady has a different idea of what that is than Dekim." After a pause, she added, "We're both daughters of great kings and have ruled the world briefly."

Relena nodded, agreeing so far.

"I tried to be a good daughter last year, but it doesn't work out. Lady tries to help, but she doesn't really understand. I've thought about this a lot, and I've decided that today I don't need someone who knew my father, I need someone who understands _me_!"

Relena looked at the girl sympathetically. Yes, she could understand finding out your whole life was a lie, discovering your father was a legend, and being expected to follow a man about whom you know nothing.

"Where would you like to start?" she asked.

Mariemaia thought for a moment. "There're so many sources. I don't know what's true and what's not! Everyone saw my father differently, and they all think they saw the real him."

"And what do you think about that?"

"I think he only showed people what he wanted them to see."

"Do you think anyone saw the 'real him'?" Relena inquired.

Mariemaia thought for a minute. "Maybe Zechs and Miss Dorothy did since they grew up with him. Everyone else saw him after he became an actor for the world."

Relena nodded. That sounded about right from what she gathered from Dorothy and from her brother.

"It's still hard because my father seemed to gather troubled souls around him. They had—some still have—their own problems."

"And that skews their views," she finished.

Mariemaia agreed. "One thing they do agree on: he was a great man; most of them speak of him like he was a god. Do you know what it's like to have to live up to a god?"

"I do. You would have thought my birth father was the first one to think up pacifism the way some people talk of him." Relena shook her head. "They built him up to be larger than life and expected me to act the same way. Of course they had blown his actions out of proportion in their minds. Martyrdom does that to people."

"I noticed," the child responded. "When people aren't calling my father a victorious soldier, they say he's a martyr for peace." She looked away; for what reasons, Relena could only guess.

"I suppose you could see it that way," she conceded.

However, Mariemaia shrugged and rolled her eyes (or so it seemed to Relena). "I couldn't say." Something about that sentence—and the previous ones—perturbed Relena.

"Mariemaia," she asked, "why do you speak like that?"

She blinked and looked at the older woman. "Speak like what, Miss Relena?"

"You always sound like you're much older than you really are," she explained. "Most children your age speak in run-ons or dependent clauses. You speak better than a lot people my age, in fact."

"You don't speak like most people your age either," the girl pointed out.

"That's true," she allowed. "However, I am an adult, so age is of no consequence anymore."

"I thought you weren't an adult until twenty under the new laws."

"I'm an exception."

Mariemaia studied her for a moment. "Then, I am, too."

This time, she laughed. "Oh? And why do you get to be an exception, too?"

"I told you. We're the same."

"I thought that only was about our fathers. I didn't realize it included what constitutes legal adulthood."

"It does." They were silent for a moment, but Mariemaia returned to the original topic. "So, I don't know how my father really was. Everyone has a different view—most seem to idolize him. I don't know how my father really was…much less what he would want me to be."

Relena nodded. "I can understand that." Mariemaia looked at her expectantly. "I had many people telling me how King Peacecraft was and how he would have wanted me to act."

"How did you work through it? How did you decide what he wanted?" she asked earnestly.

She smiled. "Actually, I realized that it didn't mater how he thought or acted. Just because he gave me life, it doesn't mean I have to do what he did. I'm my own person. My father may have been a hero, but I'm not bound to his methods or his ways. Things like that are not passed through DNA. Children act differently from their parents all the time. Look at Quatre. He grew up with his father, but they have vastly different views. Everyone is his own person; he is not bound to do exactly what his father did—no matter how famous the father may be."

"So I shouldn't be what my father would have wanted?" Mariemaia asked.

"All fathers—deep down—want their children to be happy and be themselves, so as long as you be yourself, be a child in your case, you'll be doing what he wanted. I'm sure what Lady Une wants as well."

The girl thought for a moment. "Is that why you went back to being Darlian instead of Peacecraft? Because you're your own person and you're not binding yourself to King Peacecraft?"

Relena paused for a moment. The scene with her mother when she made the change flooded her memory, but she forced herself to push it down. Her smile diminished slightly as she fought down a laugh at part of the memory brought into her mind. "It's…part of the reason, yes. There were many other reasons, though. Has this made you feel any better?"

Mariemaia smiled and nodded. "Can I come talk to you if I need to again?"

"Of course you can. Look at it this way: you'll have Lady, Zechs, Noin, and Dorothy to talk about your father, and you can always talk to me about yourself."

"Good."

Relena glanced at the clock. If she wanted to get away, she had about ten minutes. "Speaking of Dorothy," she said as she stood and pulled on her coat. "I was just about to call her and escape to the mall for some shopping. Care to join us? I'm sure Lady won't mind." When the girl nodded enthusiastically, Relena pulled out her digital and started dialing Lady's number before anyone could catch them. They slipped into the elevator and made their escape.


End file.
